Assorted Disney Fun

by Hacks  (hacks@rocketmail.com)

I recently returned from a trip to Disney World and I spent a good deal of my time at Innoventions at Epcot.

While there I decided to try and hack the computers.  I walked up to a computer running a demo on Visual Studio 6 or something like that and tried to see what I could do.

First off I hit Alt+F4 which exited the demo.  This got me to a blank desktop with no icons and the Start Menu.

I quickly noticed that the only thing in the systray was the Full Armor icon (it's a little red shield with one or two swords over the top of it).  Not even the clock was there.

Next I clicked on the Start Menu.  It said Windows 95 along the left-hand side and the only things on it were Programs, Documents, and a link to get back into the demo.

Now I tried to right-click on the Start Menu to explore it but the right-click was disabled.  The only other things I could think of to try were the Windows shortcut keys.

First F1 to get into help but nothing happened.  Then F3 to get into find.  Bingo, it came right up!  Now to see what was on this computer.

I searched for *.EXE on C: - it came up with most of the default Windows EXEs, the demo EXE, and the Full Armor EXEs.

I scrolled down to REGEDIT.EXE and clicked it in hopes I could re-enable the options that were disabled.  (There is a list of Windows options in the registry and instructions on how to change them at www.eons.com/registry.htm)  But REGEDIT was also disabled.

Scrolling through the EXEs I saw ARMCONF.EXE.  I started it and to my surprise it didn't ask for any kind of password.  It had three circular check box things.  The one in the middle read Critical Protection.  It was the one that was checked.  The one below that read System Freeze Protection, and the one on top read Turn Off All Protection.  I clicked that one and hit O.K.

Now I ran REGEDIT again and it started right up.  From there I could do anything I wanted to do on the computer.  But being a good little hacker I didn't change anything.

I simply put Critical Protection back on and started the demo again.  Now I wanted to know if this technique would work on the other computers.

I went to the one next to it which was running Kia's Power Goo.  I hit Alt+F4 and got out of that.  I hit F3 and nothing happened.  Puzzled, I clicked on the Start Menu and it said Windows 98 along the left-hand side.

I tried some other shortcut keys but they didn't work either.  And because I'm not running Windows 98 at my house I didn't know of any shortcut keys that are only in Windows 98.

After returning home I searched for Windows 98 shortcut keys and I found a list.  The only one that might work is Win+R - it opens the Run dialog box.  Win is the key that has the Windows logo on it.

If anybody finds a way to do this in Windows 98 please e-mail me I would like to know.